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Can a fire-breathing shapeshifter melt her a Norse battle maiden’s heart?
As a Valkyrie, Tyra was created for one purpose: to reap souls for Odin’s army. After centuries of walking among mortal warriors, she finally discovers what it is to want a man during a chance encounter with a dragon in human form. Bron has no part in the war between the demons and the gods’ chosen people—nor does he want one. Finally free from the oppressive rule of the dragon queen, he desires nothing more than his independence. But, when Tyra is betrayed, he finds he has no choice but to take a side in the struggle between good and evil. Once he joins the battle, Bron is subject to the Fates, whom Tyra serves. Will she defy the will of the gods to spare the dragon she loves? SHARON ASHWOOD is a novelist, desk jockey and enthusiast for the weird and spooky. She has an English literature degree but works as a finance geek. Interests include growing her to-be-read pile and playing with the toy graveyard on her desk. Sharon is the winner of the 2011 RITA® Award for Paranormal Romance. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is owned by the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness. Valkyrie’s Conquest Sharon Ashwood To the school librarian who put that first book about Asgard into my hands. What wonderful, endless hours of adventure you gave me! Tyra is the youngest daughter of the Norse god Odin. She is a Valkyrie, one of the supernatural warrior maidens who reap the souls of dead heroes. To keep the Valkyries obedient, Odin has repressed their emotions—especially love. But his powers are weakening, and Tyra’s heart is coming to life. Bron is a dragon shifter, all fire and passion. When he sees Tyra flying through the city night, he instantly follows. And yet, even as Bron melts Tyra’s icy reserve, he learns that defying Odin has its price. I’ve always been fascinated by the awakening of the heart, especially when it is so firmly armored that love shouldn’t even be a possibility. This is Tyra’s journey, and it’s one fraught with literal and emotional danger. I’ve taken a lot of liberties with the original Valkyrie myth in creating this fairy tale, but I plead the excuse of dragons. It seems that whenever those fiery beasts swagger into the picture, everything turns upside-down. Just ask Odin. Happy reading! Sharon Ashwood Table of Contents A beautiful woman who could fly? Now that interested Bron even more than a pretty face. His lips parted in fascination, Bron watched her from atop his perch on the cathedral roof, where he sat lounging against one of the large stone gargoyles. She swooped from the sky with the swiftness of a comet, her translucent wings sending rainbows through the purple twilight. Details were sketchy at this distance, but Bron could see the soaring figure was shapely with a mass of long golden hair streaming behind her. The fading light glinted on a breastplate made of silver links. Beneath that she wore a leather tunic and supple boots that left her lithe limbs bare. To borrow a human term, she was hot—and in response, Bron felt the dragonfire within him smolder with interest. “What do you think?” he asked the gargoyle. “Should I say hello, one winged creature to another?” The gargoyle, being no more than a stone statue, did not reply but remained hunched on the rooftop, sticking out a forked tongue at no one in particular. Bron watched as the woman streaked past the half-finished condominiums across the way, past the construction cranes and flashing billboards and old-fashioned neon signs that crowned the streets. “The sword makes a statement,” he muttered, eyeing the enormous blade slung across her back. “I think it might be go away.” Her wings stretched wide as she banked and dove toward the rivers of cars below. The city lights were coming to life, spangling the darkness like a sudden scattering of stars and turning those wings into glowing, insubstantial veils. Before he realized it, he had risen to his feet, wanting, needing to keep her in sight. Don’t be a fool. Whatever she was up to, it wasn’t Bron’s affair. He was a dragon shifter, a creature of scales, fire and fang. He was master of his own wanderings and had left the claustrophobic tangle of dragon politics behind. Why get mixed up with anyone else’s wars? But cutting ties with his den meant leaving everyone he knew behind, and the solitude was getting to him. A pretty woman—even one brandishing a weapon—would be an improvement on talking to statues. “I’ve been told a touch of risk adds spice to a liaison.” Bron gave the stone gargoyle a pat on its cold, hard flank. “And who can resist a dragon when he chooses to be charming?” With that, he began running along the rooftops, leaping from one to the next with a strength and agility that would have made humans gape had they looked up to see it. Even so, he barely kept the winged woman in view as she dove into the crevasse between sparkling towers. It would have been easier to shift, but
